IPads

So, the school is getting IPads. This is great if you want everyone to be distracted and playing games all during class. As you can probably tell I am very against Hammond getting IPads. I think its a waste of money, and Hammond is rushing into this too early. Just because some schools are already getting IPads that does not mean Hammond needs to get them too. I mean Hammond just got WIFI and it is not even that good. It constantly crashes and is very slow. So, If everyone in the school got IPads, can you imagine how slow and how often the WIFI would crash? Another reason Hammond should not get IPad is the apps on the IPad are not good enough to not have anymore textbooks because you can not write in the textbooks in the IPads. You can take notes, but in my textbooks I like to write in my books and annotate. Anyways I think Hammond should not get IPads because Hammond is not ready for IPads and the technology on IPads is not ready to replace textbooks completely.

SAT

The SAT is a standardized test that pretty everyone has to take to get into to college. If they did not take the SAT then they probably took the ACT, which is another standardized test. What I think about the SAT is that it is not a good way of judging a students capability and their intelligence in certain fields because everything coms down to one test. This is not good because many people are bad test takers because they become very nervous or just freak out and freeze. This is unfair to those students because their SAT score will be low and will not be able to get to the college of their dreams. This is true about all standardized test, and my opinion is the same or all of them, they should not exist. The counter argument is "how will you then judge someone's intelligence?". My response is by their GPA for firsts and maybe their the classes they took in high school like whether they took APs, Honors, or regulars classes, and if they took AP then what their AP score was. However, the AP exam is a standardized test. What colleges should actually do is have have personal interviews. Some colleges already do this and I greatly encourage it but lets be real who really cares what I think. But still I think colleges should get a better way of judging the students that apply to their college. All I hope for is that by the time I have to start to applying for colleges that the system is much better. But, that probably won't happen. Anyways I dread taking the SAT this coming winter and hope I get a good score early so don't have to deal with this dumb system. But, now that I think about it, I will never get away from standardized testings because they are used in every field.

Avengers

This weekend I watched the movie Avengers. By far, it was one of the most exciting and best superhero films I have seen in a long time. The people who made this film did it very tactfully because they hinted at this movie from many different movies: The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America. At the end of all these movies, they had bonus scenes that alluded to the Avengers movie. Another very cool thing in the movie was the technology. It had lots of very cool ships, suits, guns, etc... An example of this was a flying aircraft carrier. One more thing that I enjoyed about the movie was the comedy. Usually superhero movies tend to be kinda of serious, but this one has many humorous parts. For example in the middle of a war in the middle of New York, the Avengers were cracking jokes. So basically what I'm trying to say is if you have a chance you new to go see the Avengers, but you need to first watch The Incredible Hulk, Thor, Captain America, and Iron Man.

Contacts

So, finally after about a year of begging I was finally able to get contacts. I wanted contacts because glasses are just a pain because it is an extra item you must keep track of, and if you have ever met me you would know i am not the most responsible person. So having contacts is so much better. The only down side to contacts are they hurt like crazy when you put them in you eyes because if you think about it you shouldn't be putting things in your eye, but it is worth being able to see. So now i can finally see the board from the back of the class. yayayaya.

The Descendants

The Descendants is a movie about a man that realizes his wife was cheating on him after she goes into a permanent coma. His daughter, older one, is the one that tells him. The rest of the movie being able to have closure on this which included meeting the person she was cheating on him with, decided not to sell his huge property in Hawaii, and eventually letting his wife go.
I thought this movie was one of the best movies that has come out recently. Sadly it did not win any oscars this year but it definetly should have.

Christmas Break

During Christmas break this year i went to India. We flew into a city call Calcutta or Kolkata. This is where the majority of my family lives. Like all India trips, it was a very tiring and exhausting trip. This is not because we traveled alot but because India is very...different. The thing I probably noticed that was the most different was the driving "rules". In Kolkata there are no lanes and no one follows traffic lights. Put it this way if you can cross the road in Kolkata, you will be able to cross the road literally anywhere. After Kolkata, we went to New Delhi where they actually inforce the driving laws. This trip was a very interesting trip, but it is still one of my favorite trips.

9th grade

I think everyone thinks that 9th grade was a big year for them no matter where they went to school. 9th grade is the first year grades actually count which may not seem that bad, but this means that literally every grade counts. I have already learned a huge lesson when it comes to test taking this year in Mr. Rice's biology class. On the very first test of the year, the easiest test in his class, in got an 83. I didn't get this because i didn't study but because the skipped a COMPLETE PAGE!!! And the top it off, the page I accidentally skipped was the easiest page on the whole test. This grade did hurt my average badly but I found a way to pull it up to an A. Which isn't bad. Another lesson I learned about tests is I can no longer not study for a test the day of the test. A good example of this is my first two world cultures tests. Also the two easiest tests of the entire course I score an 86 & 84 in that order. After this happened I told myself to try studying in advance for a chance to see what happens. And what do you know I get a 92 followed by a 93 on my next two tests. So far 9th grade has drastically changed my approach to assessments. I used to be even more lazy then I am currently am, yes I know it is hard to believe, and never used to study for anything or did any homework. So far 9th grade, for the most part, has changed me for the better.